


And oh, the best it could be (Just you and I)

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode: s09e07 Pua A'e La Ka Uwahi O Ka Moe (The Smoke Seen in the Dream Now Rises), First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Marriage Proposal, mentions of past Steve/Catherine - Freeform, significant amounts of alcohol have been consumed off-screen, yes both of those tags because these two men are a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 20:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16688263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: “So here’s a wild thought,” Steve finally starts, apparently having remembered that there is such a thing as verbal communication and he doesn’t have to convey his latest thought to Danny through either osmosis or small assaults. Danny already knows he’s not going to like what comes next. “We kept comparing the restaurant to a marriage, right? And now we’ve quit Steve’s, but you haven’t quit me, so I think we should get married.”“Huh,” Danny says, because what else is there to say, really?





	And oh, the best it could be (Just you and I)

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a very quick, mostly silly 9x07 coda. I can’t promise that it’s entirely accurate to the episode because I haven’t seen it yet (which seems to be a trend with how I write H50 fic), but I did see the very last scene, and that’s all that matters here, so I think it should be fine. 
> 
> The title is a line from _Grow old with me_ , a Tom Odell song.

They have something to celebrate, now that they’ve officially decided what to do with their clusterfuck of a restaurant. So they have a drink, which turns into two drinks, which turns into more than one empty bottle and both of them sitting on the floor, somehow. At least they chose a good spot for it, where they can lean their backs against the bar, shoulders pressed together like they’re not the only two people in a deserted building.

Danny stretches his legs out in front of him. He looks at his socked feet – purple with green dots, a Christmas present from Grace from a few years back – which naturally draws his attention to Steve’s completely bare feet, next to his. Danny can’t remember if Steve never wore socks, or if he just took them off along with his shoes, somewhere between drinks two and three.

Steve’s feet are nice. That’s a weird thought to have about feet, Danny knows, even in his addled state, but it’s true. They’re very big, which bodes well for Steve’s girlfriends.

He’s just sinking away in his thoughts, a pretty comfortable place to be for once, when Steve nudges him. He does it twice, like he’s got something really important to say and like he doesn’t already have a minimum of half of Danny’s attention during every waking moment.

Danny swats at him in retaliation, but it only results in Steve’s large, too-warm hand boldly taking his and holding on. Danny wants to be far more annoyed about it than he is.

“So here’s a wild thought,” Steve finally starts, apparently having remembered that there is such a thing as verbal communication and he doesn’t have to convey his latest thought to Danny through either osmosis or small assaults. Danny already knows he’s not going to like what comes next. “We kept comparing the restaurant to a marriage, right? And now we’ve quit Steve’s, but you haven’t quit me, so I think we should get married. Make it official.”

“Huh,” Danny says, because what else is there to say, really? He’s either too drunk for this, or not drunk enough. (Maybe both. _Probably_ both.) “Quit you? Did you just make a Brokeback Mountain reference?”

Steve frowns at him, but in that earnestly confused puppy way he has. It’s unfair, especially while he’s still casually holding Danny’s hand just above the non-existent space between their thighs. “Did I? I’ve never seen it. I heard it was sad.”

“That’s reassuring,” Danny says. He’s not sure that makes sense, but he’s rolling with it now. “I’m really not up for unprotected and lubeless sex in a tent.”

“Well.” Steve brings his other hand over to awkwardly pat Danny’s fingers. “That’s alright. I know you don’t like camping.”

“Great. No camping.”

“No camping,” Steve agrees. “But marriage?”

“This-” Danny takes a moment to gesture expansively at everything around them, from the bar stools they shoved aside so they could sit their asses down on the tile, to the dirty dishes that are still littered around the place because they haven’t cleaned up yet, to Steve’s ridiculous but beautiful bare feet. He only uses one hand, the one that’s free, because Steve is now holding on to the other with both of his. Danny is inclined to let him have it and needs a second to remember what he was going to say. “This is the most underwhelming proposal you could have possibly come up with.”

“What? How so?” And Steve, bless his giant semi-aquatic heart, leans away from Danny a little to lock eyes with him so Danny can see that he’s affronted.

Danny’s shoulder is getting cold, so he restores the contact with Steve’s. He’s a tiny bit relieved when Steve doesn’t withdraw further. “Babe,” Danny says, and then doesn’t know how to go on. “Oh, babe.”

Steve does not seem to think that’s a solid dismantlement of his plan. On the contrary, he digs his heels into the sand – what a perfect saying for Oahu and Steve – even deeper. “What do you want me to do, huh? We’re in our shared restaurant, which I agreed to join so we would be together when we retire, and we just found out that neither of us wanted the restaurant part of this and both of us wanted the being together. Is that not enough?”

Danny is not sure he wants to say it. He likes this, this lazy, pleasantly intoxicated intimacy they’ve got going, and he knows that what he’s thinking would throw a wrench in that quicker than, like, someone who’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing wrenches inhumanly fast.

He says it anyway, because it really does need to be said. “Is this like when you bought a ring for Catherine?” 

“What does that have to do with it?” Steve’s tone, predictably, has soured a little. 

Danny ignores him and pushes on. Sometimes, with Steve, that’s what he needs, and sometimes it’s what Danny needs, and sometimes it’s what both of them need. That last bit is true remarkably often. “Everything. You loved her and you didn’t want her to leave you again so you decided to marry her.” And she left anyway, and she broke Steve’s heart and Danny hasn’t truly forgiven her for it yet, even if Steve has. But that’s a whole different discussion. “Is that what’s happening here?”

“Danny,” Steve says. It doesn’t clear anything up for Danny, despite the way Steve says it like it should. “Danno, you gave me your liver and I put my finger inside of you. Yes, I loved Cath, but we were never like that. They’re not comparable.”

Danny pulls a face at that. “You never put your finger inside of Catherine?”

“Not in the way I did for you,” Steve says, and because he’s a sap and a bit of an oblivious idiot, he says it like it’s something romantic, somehow, to tell a guy you just proposed to that while you may have fingered your ex in the past, you never put any digits in her chest to relieve pressure on her heart and keep her from dying after being shot while in quarantine.

“I have to say,” Danny has to say, “I think she got the better end of the deal, here.”

Steve’s sigh is loud in the empty restaurant. “That’s not- How do you expect me to give you a proposal that’s not underwhelming if you keep harping on everything I say?”

“What, you want me to stop? You wouldn’t know what do to with yourself if you ever actually managed to shut me up. You’d be lost without my sweet, angelic voice guiding you through all your biggest, most suicidal mistakes in life.”

Steve takes the hand he’s sandwiching between his and pulls it a little further towards him. He taps Danny’s ring finger, right where it’s attached to the rest of him and where a ring would sit. “You think this would be one of those? A huge, suicidal mistake?” 

“No.” It’s out before he’s decided to say it, and before he’s even aware that he’s opened his mouth. It’s true anyway. He never had to think about it much.

“Right!” Steve huffs, like he didn’t expect any other answer. “Then would you just trust me? This restaurant plan went bad, okay, but what’s the one good part in all of this, the one part that’s always worked?”

“Well?” Danny knows what it is, and he’s pretty sure Steve knows he knows, but he wants to hear Steve say it.

“You and me, man. You and me, we’re good. We’re better than good. We don’t need some pizza place to tie us together.”

“Right, so we’d, uh-” Danny turns his head fully towards Steve and finds Steve already looking at him. Sitting down, most of their height difference is evened out, which means their faces are even closer together than if they were standing at this ‘I’ve never heard of the concept of personal space’ distance. “We’d be cutting out the middle man.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Steve agrees readily.

“Which is really just smart business, right, everyone knows that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Kamekona would be proud of us.”

Steve nods. “Frankly, _I_ would be proud of us.”

“Well.” Danny wonders if there’s something he’s overlooking. This all seems way to easy – he never thought Steve would get married at all, and he definitely didn’t think he himself would ever be getting married again. Now that both of those beliefs have been proven wrong at once, his world should probably be upside-down for a bit, but it isn’t. Everything is still perfectly upside-up, and if anything, he feels even more relieved than he did when they finally decided to let Kamekona have the restaurant. “All this doesn’t sound so bad,” Danny decides, out loud.

“And think of the tax benefits,” Steve tells him, like Danny is giving him a hard sell, but he really wants to peddle his product.

So Danny kisses him. It lacks technique and tastes of stale alcohol and is kind of bad, but Steve melts into it without hesitation, and that means it’s also glorious. It’s the best kiss Danny has ever had, in his life, ever – not so much because it actually is, but because it feels like it is. It’s both something he’s been waiting to happen for over eight years, and somehow still a surprise. It’s a paradox. It’s Schrödinger’s kiss, except not, because it’s very much Steve he’s kissing, not some Austrian physicist.

When they separate, Danny gets to watch Steve’s eyes blink open. He looks like he’s just been punched in the chest, but is really happy about it. Danny can’t believe he wants to spend the rest of his life with this weirdo.

“I’m taking that as a yes,” Steve tells him, so softly and contented that it takes Danny a moment to place that statement.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Danny says, using their still linked hands to draw Steve’s over to him so he can press a kiss to Steve’s ring finger, because if Steve gets to be a sap, then so does he, “but you are being an asshole about it.”

“I have to be, so you have enough things to rant about. See how well this works?”

“Yeah,” Danny agrees. “I see.”

Steve smiles at him, so Danny smiles back. It’s quiet in this restaurant they tried to use as a substitute for what they were really after, but it’s anything but quiet in Danny’s heart.

He takes a deep breath. “But-” he starts, and Steve’s smile widens into a grin, and he holds on to Danny’s hand tightly, and he generally gives off the impression of having settled in to listen to Danny talk until they’re both wrinkled and grey-haired.

**Author's Note:**

> One thing I figured out while writing this: I love Steve awkwardly proposing to Danny in the worst, most underwhelming way possible, and Danny pretending to be sceptical about it because that's just his default when Steve says anything, even though in reality he's 200% on board from the get-go. I have eleven finished H50 fics up on ao3 now and two of them are about that and nothing else. That’s 18% of the total. That’s something.
> 
> Anyway! Thank you for reading! Please consider leaving a comment if you can, because I love reading them and I will respond, even if it takes me a while. <3
> 
> I’m on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com).


End file.
